Sunday, 17 January 2010

Coming soon: Chris Eccleston as John Lennon

It's fair to say that Chris Eccleston's career has gone in some rather odd directions since he "sensationally quit" (a phrase I have borrowed from The Sun and which I must give back to them some day) Dr Who back in 2005. He had a guest shot in a few episodes of the dreary 'Heroes' and has turned up in old toot like 'The Dark Is Rising' and 'GI Joe' (which I'm ashamed to admit quite liking) presumably because the pay check made it worth his while. But where's Chris Eccelston the ac-tor, the man who magnetised the screen when he exploded onto it in 'Shallow Grave', 'Our Friends in the North', 'Hillsborough'? Where's he gone??

He may be back! Coming soon to the BBC (possibly BBC4) is a drama entitled 'Lennon Naked' which chronicles the turbulent late 1960s period in the life of Beatle John Lennon as the band started to disintegrate and Lennon fell under the thrall of Yoko Ono. Pictured below is Eccleston as Lennon in the new production and 'Torchwood' fans (hello!) will be interested to learn (if they didn't know already and I suspect they did) that Toshiko herself, Naoko Mori, has been cast as Yoko Ono. No airing date yet for this production but it sounds like a good 'un and a return to form for Eccleston. Fantastic!